An investigation has reportedly found that an incident in January in a Bedouin village during which a police officer and a local resident were killed was not terrorism, despite the initial claim by police and the public security minister that it was an Islamic State-inspired attack.

In late January 2017, the military blocked off vehicle access via the main entrance of Palestinian village of ‘Azzun – and kept the entrance shut nearly continuously for two and a half weeks – as collective punishment for incidents in which stones and Molotov cocktails were hurled and live ammunition fired at the major traffic artery that runs close to the village.

Gaza

It is unclear how the flickers of change elsewhere in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will ripple to Gaza, which is surrounded by Israel on two sides, by Egypt to the southwest and by the Mediterranean.

Israeli politics

Israel should not be forced to pay a diplomatic price for security cooperation with moderate Sunni states in the region, former minister Gideon Sa’ar said Tuesday. The statement was seen as critical of those who have called for a regional approach to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Isaac Herzog and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid.